Kemper
Category:Characters | aliases = | film = | franchise = The Texas Chainsaw Massacre | image = | notability = | type = | gender = | base of operations = Travis County, Texas | known relatives = | status = | born = | died = August 18th, 1973 | 1st appearance = Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (2003) | final appearance = | actor = Eric Balfour }} Kemper is a fictional murder victim and a supporting character in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film franchise. He is part of the continuity of the remake series and appeared in the 2003 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He was played by actor Eric Balfour. Biography Kemper was a young man who grew up during the 1960s and 70s. In 1971, he began dating a girl named Erin. In August of 1973, Kemper, Erin and their friends Andy and Morgan took a vacation to Mexico. The real purpose behind this journey was to purchase two pounds of marijuana, which they intended on selling in the United States (presumably). They got the drugs through customs by concealing it within a pinata. Though Erin was a free-spirited individual, she was not particularly eager to embrace Kemper's more criminal exploits. As such, he kept the entire business of buying such a high volume of marijuana a secret from her. It was his notion that with the sale of these drugs, Erin and he would be able to start a future together. To that end, he bought her a tear-dropped diamond engagement ring, but had yet to pop the question. On their way back from Mexico, Kemper and the others were passing through El Paso, when they picked up a hippie hitchhiker named Pepper. Pepper immediately found herself attracted to Andy and the two spent the majority of the ride making out in the back of Kemper's van. On August 18th, they were passing through Travis County, Texas when they noticed a distraught teenage girl wandering down the road. At Erin's urging, they picked her up and it was clear that she had been deeply traumatized by something. The girl was quite insensate, but flew into a panic when she noted that they were driving back towards the place she had just escaped from. Unwilling to revisit any of the terrors she was previously forced to endure, the girl produced a revolver from under her dress, placed the barrel in her mouth and blew her brains out. In addition to having giant hole in the back window of the van, Kemper now had to worry about what to do about the body. Through the course of conversation, Erin learned the truth about her boyfriend's purchases in Mexico. Frustrated, he took the marijuana-filled pinata and threw it into a field. The group drove along until they came upon the first business establishment they could find - the Cele Community Center. Kemper informed the proprietor of the store, Luda May, that a teenage girl had committed suicide in the back of their van. asked her to dial the local sheriff and she told him that doing so would cost him 10 cents. Using the telephone behind the counter, she called whom the others believed to be the sheriff, but it was actually Charlie Hewitt. She gave him the location of the incident as told to her by Kemper, which occurred some five miles west of their location. After hanging up, she told Kemper and his friends that the sheriff would be tied up for the next two hours and that he asked if they wouldn't mind driving the body to the Old Crawford Mill. Kemper was flabbergasted and angrily stated that he was not going to drive around town with a dead girl in the back of his van. They had little choice however, but to drive on to the Old Crawford Mill. When they arrived there, they found the place had been largely abandoned, although it was decorated with all manner of strange and macabre bric-a-brac. A young boy named Jedidiah emerged and they asked him where the sheriff might be. The boy told him that he was home getting drunk. Kemper drove on and their journey eventually brought them to the Hewitt residence. They had no idea that this was actually the home of Charlie Hewitt, who had been masquerading as the town sheriff for the past four years. The only one at home was an elderly paraplegic named Monty Hewitt. Erin and Kemper asked him if they could use his telephone to report the suicide. Monty let Erin into his house, but wave Kemper back. Kemper eventually got tired of waiting on Erin, and decided to sneak into the house himself. As he was skulking about, the gigantic psychopath known as Thomas Hewitt emerged from behind and clubbed him over the back of the head with a mallet. He then took Kemper down to his work shop where he finished him off, and then skinned his face. Thomas turned Kemper's face into a hideous skin mask, which he wore. Later, after Erin had discovered that the entire Hewitt family were a bunch of cannibal psychopaths, she ran into Thomas Hewitt and screamed when she realized that he was wearing her lover's face. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (2003) Notes & Trivia * * Kemper's first name is never provided through the course of the film. He is occasionally referred to as "Kemp". * It is unclear exactly what Kemper's profession was. Judging by his attire, he appears to have worked in an auto-body shop or a gas station. He may have been a mechanic or a gas attendant. He wore a grey button-down shirt with a his name sewn into a patch on it. * Kemper is the second character to die in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the first male character to die. He is the first character to be murdered and is also the first on-screen victim of Thomas Hewitt. Chronologically, Kemper is the eleventh character to die in the film series, and the sixth male character. He is the seventh victim of Leatherface and the second victim whose face is made into a skin mask. The first was Eric from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. * Kemper is one of two characters in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a mustache. He is one of four characters in the reboot series to have mustaches in total. The others are Winston Hoyt and Eric, both of whom were in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, and Morgan, who appeared with Kemper in the same film. See also External Links * * * The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Wikipedia * The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at the TCM Wiki References ---- Category:Victims Category:1973/Character deaths Category:Thomas Hewitt/Victims Category:Characters with biographies Category:Eric Balfour/Characters